


Tabula Rasa

by interestingword



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 00:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21234761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interestingword/pseuds/interestingword
Summary: Statement of Walter Skua, regarding his experiences as a ghost.





	Tabula Rasa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buzzbuzz34](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buzzbuzz34/gifts).

> this seems to be late! i didn't notice the challenge was in gmt, and i was in rehearsal for a show until after that passed, so fingers crossed this can still be part of the thing. anyway. here's my submission! hope yall like it! will probably come back and clean it up after the show is done because haaaaaaaah theater.

Hello, all. Before I begin, I feel I should introduce myself, since most of you I’m sure will never have had the pleasure of meeting me. My name is Walter Skua. I’m writing in the hopes that my testimony will be found by...well, anyone, at this point. It’s been months since I’ve seen anyone. I see evidence of people being around, at least, but they may as well be ghosts. Or maybe I’m the ghost? I don’t know.

Anyway, I found a fresh pad of paper in one of the desks here in this library, and I’ve nothing better to do with my time. So. How I got here. Just before the semester started, I got a roommate. It wasn’t ideal, but I’d been passed over for a lot of promotions, money was getting tight, and it was fairly easy to find a university student who didn’t like the dorms. Steve was my first and last interview, and I couldn’t believe my luck. Here I was, expecting my search to take ages, and there was the perfect candidate right before my eyes! He didn’t have pets, didn’t like parties, didn’t have a significant other, and was willing to fork over his share of the semester’s rent right then and there. Half an hour after we’d met, it was settled. He moved in three days later. I remember fondly how we spent our first day together. I was naked on the couch, working my way through a package of Oreos and occasionally shouting at the chefs on Chopped. Steve was at his classes, I assume.   
It just...it felt so good to realize that I gaining a roommate didn’t mean losing my independence. Plus, I only had to pay half the rent. It was a win for...well, me, at least. 

With that in mind, it shouldn’t come as a shock that we never interacted much. I worked the graveyard shift as security for a local pawn shop. He was taking classes dusk til dawn. Trying to graduate earlier, he told me. Perplexed me, but I didn’t mind. I was quite fond of my solitude. It’s never really bothered me, being alone. People like to make a fuss - “oh, poor me, I stayed home all weekend” - but really? I think they just feel inadequate if they don’t kick up a stink about the whole thing. Society has been so persistent that we interact that it’s forgotten how integral recharging time is to our mental health.

My utopian solitude was ruined about a month and a half later, when I started to hear Steve muttering to himself all day. Yes, all day. When I was trying to sleep. Sometimes he’d spice it up with some thumping, or some dragging of furniture, and I (of course) got to hear every wonderful detail through our paper-thin walls. At first I’d ask him about what he was doing, why the hell he couldn’t do it during the day, but every time he’d mumble some junk about “keeping me company” ...or something like that. I wasn’t listening. 

Eventually, I just gave in. Investing in some muffling ear plugs and locking my bedroom door at night were so much easier than having to deal with leases and contracts and all that professional stuff. May as well just get through this semester, I decided, and line up some interviews while I waited.

One day, I finally got some good rest. I woke up on my own time. Made some cereal. Finished off the orange juice. Got dressed. Checked the sinks - I swore I’d heard them leaking all night - and found they were all fine. Went to work. Got home from work. Watched YouTube videos. Went to sleep. That’s when I started to get worried, because one day without jibber-jabber next door was a blessing. Two days was concerning. However, I decided, not that concerning. I slept like a log. 

Eventually, I went to check on Steve. He wasn’t my favorite person, but I hadn’t seen or heard from him for a while even before the noises stopped, and it seemed like the right thing to do. Y’know? Plus, if he’d been horribly murdered, I didn’t want to set myself up as a suspect. So, with a spare key in one hand and a yardstick in the other, I cracked open his bedroom. What did I find?   
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything was the same. Sure, the furniture was a bit different than it was last time I had looked in, but other than that, it was just about the same. Completely unremarkable. I stepped inside a bit, curiosity overruling my wariness, and no matter what I did, it was stubbornly unexceptional. The drawers had clothes in them, folded neatly except for the socks. There was a bit of trash in the basket. Like he'd been there one minute, gone the next. 

A week later, I called the police, with no sign of Steve having shown up since then. Steve, or...anyone else, really. But that was just my normal life. Graveyard shift, and all that jazz. It was only when my call went unanswered that I realized how odd it was, the emptiness of the convenience store and the lack of traffic during my commute, and I began to get worried. Didn't go in to work that night. Called everyone in my contacts, and a few who weren't, to no avail. Checking back through my email, nothing I had sent for the last eight days had been received. After about an hour of trying, the internet just up and gave out entirely, and hasn't been back since. Yippee. 

The television still works, somewhat. The people and voices in every program are somehow cut out, so all you have left are shots after shots of scenery, but it's better than nothing. 

I don’t know how I got here, or who else there may be, or even where “here” is. There are lights on in the distant houses whenever I go out to get food. Things are positioned differently when I leave and come back to a place. But when I approach, or when I stay, or when I watch, all the signs stop.   
It’s been about four months, by my estimate. Four months of solitude. Four months of self-doubt. Four months of thievery. My resources seem nigh infinite but I can feel my hope slipping with every silent night that passes. I wish I could say they were dreamless. Did you know, we assign a random face we’ve seen to every person in every one of our dreams? Maybe it’s your best bud, or maybe it’s a cashier you met two decades ago. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It just is. 

Or, for me, it was. For the last week or so, the only people in my dreams have been faceless. Blank. Devoid. I look them in the eye and I don't _see_ any eyes, just a smooth skin-looking thing in place of everything that might mark them as human. They act like people, at least. Don't talk or express themselves, but they go through the motions just fine. They are what I never knew I wanted people to be. Simple, relaxed, to the point. Standoffish. We all have our spaces and we all respect it. 

I'm not sure what's going to become of me, really. If the change in my dreams means anything, or if it's just marking my transition into this liminal world. I. Don't. Know. But what I do know is that I don't think I care anymore.


End file.
